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The mechanism isn't additional information; it's enabling the collusion the individual participants would already prefer to participate in. With simple inventories (like gasoline), computers aren't essential for collusion. In more complicated markets it's helpful to let the machines do the "heavy" lifting.

When all else is equal, the preference for sellers is to charge the same price a monopolist would choose (assume temporary price excursions don't have long-term ramifications like brand loyalty, and assume that "all else equal" extends far enough that competitors would also drop prices to match to avoid greatly reduced sales).

Realish-time updates, apparently with very simplistic rules, seem to converge near that price point, and the inequalities of various sellers seem to not matter much (because there aren't many, because they average out, because they don't impact price preferences much, ....)



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